a single gunshot. She looked clean, scrubbed and well fed, too.
Dizz-ee waved at Flav to follow him and jogged across to the gate section of the barricade. He pulled open the wire gate, just wide enough to step outside. Twenty yards away the girl stopped and stared at the gun he had levelled at her.
‘So, what d’you want?’
‘I saw the lights of this place, last night,’ said the girl. ‘You got power?’
Dizz-ee silently appraised her. She looked more presentable than most of the girls in the ‘cattle shed’; many of them were looking the worse for wear, skin purple and mottled from bruising, most of them unpleasantly thin and malnourished. There hadn’t been any new girls in the pen for quite some time. Some fresh ass would be sweet.
Keep her for myself.
‘Hey, Dizz-ee. What do we do?’ asked Flav quietly.
Thing is, he knew Snoop would bag the girl for himself just as soon as he clapped eyes on her. The selfish shit-fuck would pull rank on him and have her himself.
‘Shall I go tell Snoop we got a girl coming in?’
Dizz-ee shook his head. ‘No, hang on. I’ll take her in myself,’ he replied under his breath.
Flav looked at him uncertainly. ‘You know Snoop’ll want the girl,’ he whispered.
‘Fuck him. We’ll put her in the cattle shed with the others. He don’t go there much now, since they all looking so rough. I’m having her myself.’
The girl was watching them whispering from twenty yards out. ‘Can I come in?’ she called across.
She sounds well posh.
‘So, what about me, Dizz? Do I get a piece of her?’
‘Maybe, when I’m all done.’
Flav considered that for a moment. ‘A’ight,’ he said, smiling.
Dizz-ee winked at the younger lad and then pulled the gate wider. ‘Yeah, sure,’ he called to the girl waving her forward. ‘You better come in.’
She hesitated. Dizz-ee cocked his head at the girl. ‘Come in,’ he smiled. ‘It’s safer inside than out. Safe zone, this.’
The girl stared at him for a moment. ‘Okay,’ she said and stepped slowly forward through the gap in the barrier, her eyes darting warily between Dizz-ee and Flav, the guns in their hands and their official-looking orange jackets.
‘Bit young aren’t you?’ she said to Flav. ‘To be . . . like, “staff”?’
Flav stiffened and for a moment she thought the young lad was going to slap her in the face. Dizz-ee didn’t want his fresh meat all puckered and purple on the first night, so he stepped forward. ‘Oh, Flav’s man enough,’ said Dizz-ee, ‘bro’s thirteen, aren’t you?’
Flav nodded.
‘Come on.’ Dizz-ee smiled warmly, offering her a hand. ‘Come, I’ll show you round.’
Chapter 50
10 years AC
Excel Centre - Docklands, London
‘If I’d known he was some sort of bloody preacher,’ said Jenny.
Dr Gupta nodded as she replaced the dressing on her shoulder. ‘He does seem very good at it.’
A gusty day today; wind moaned softy at the porthole of her cabin, anxious to be let in. Clouds scudded across the blue sky. The dark-grey sea below them was frosted with lively white horses.
‘Five times a day now he holds prayer meetings over there,’ said Walter, nodding through the glass at the outline of the drilling platform. ‘You can see when it’s prayer time, the north walkway’s thick with his groupies making their way over.’
‘I should have evicted him,’ uttered Jenny, wincing as Dr Gupta gently rubbed some antiseptic cream onto her shoulder and neck. She should have realised then, when he’d turned up at her request to discuss the matter of prayers at mealtime, that the only way to sort the problem out was promptly returning him to shore with a bag of supplies to help him on his way.
She hadn’t realised how quickly support for him was going to grow. It looked like fifty to sixty people were part of his ‘church’ already. Every time she heard that football whistle being blown from the far platform she turned to see which of her people started to put down their tools and make their way over; more every day, it seemed.
‘Yes,’ said Walter quietly. ‘He’s nothing but trouble.’
‘The problem is, Jenny, people want their faith,’ said Dr Gupta. ‘And that’s what he’s offering them.’
Jenny nodded. Tami was right. She’d worked so hard to ensure that there was nothing divisive such as religion to add to the numerous difficulties with living out here. She remembered back in the early days, in the first few years after the crash when things were at their darkest, all manner of bastardised, radicalised